Evidence #252: Christopher Nolan forces all competitors to flee as he dominates the blockbuster battle | culture

TThis July, rivals were fleeing in fear — like Ithacans fleeing the giant Polyphemus — from The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s massive stage adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. The only significant alternatives you’ll find in cinemas the week of its release are a few Aardman reissues and the very poorly reviewed Animal Farm adaptation. The volatile events continue next week as well, with the star attraction being a cheap horror film that capitalizes on Pinocchio’s status in the public domain. Only by July 31 will a blockbuster movie temporarily pop its head over the parapet – and we applaud your bravery, Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

No other filmmaker is as able to make studios retreat from the battlefield as Nolan, such is his influence. Sure, other directors might be able to attract large numbers of moviegoers thanks to their names on the poster – Paul Thomas Anderson, Tarantino, Scorsese – but none of them operate on the same scale as “event cinema,” selling out theaters for months on end. A contemporary Spielberg might come close, with a fair wind behind him, but that depends entirely on the project: a flashy sci-fi thriller that harkens back to its golden age of E.T. and Close Encounters — perhaps; A semi-autobiographical paean to the wonders of filmmaking – not so much. Nolan doesn’t tend to experiment with this contrast: anything he stamps his name on will reliably hit him.

Take the last of his. Could an adaptation of a millennia-old oral poem starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland be successful under normal circumstances and with any other director? Maybe – although it’s also easy to imagine that in some movie blog’s “biggest turkeys of all time” list, given the state of the swords-and-sandals saga, one of those once-popular genres, like the Western or Hollywood comedy, is now thought to be on the verge of extinction. But under Nolan’s direction, The Odyssey will not only be a hit, it will likely be the biggest movie of the year. After all, his last film, Oppenheimer, would have been just that, had it not been for Barbie’s plasticizing charms — and, let’s remember, Oppenheimer was a lavish biography of the father of the atomic bomb, which included only one measly explosion amidst three hours of chalkboard scratching.

His unique ability to push bums into seats, regardless of the film’s genre or subject, makes Nolan something of a unicorn (other Greek mythological beasts are also available); The only major star left in an era in which the author has lost his aura. The consensus opinion that, in this privilege-laden age, A-list actors can no longer launch a hit film on their own, certainly applies doubly to directors. Today, even the best emerging filmmakers can hope that a studio will spot their promising indie debut and sign them up for the final stretch of the never-ending universe of superhero movies. There, said filmmaker will lend a glimpse of credibility to the establishment, before seeing their individual vision shattered into formless conformity in post-production — and, if they’re lucky, they’ll experience the same act of disparagement again with the sequel.

Nolan is an interesting counterpoint here, given that he achieved “star director” status with his Batman trilogy. But it helps that, in the mid-2000s, the superhero movie had not yet swallowed up the rest of cinema, and the director was able to bend the genre to his will rather than the other way around: The Dark Knight is definitely a Nolan movie first, a Batman movie second.

It is not the only area where he has cleverly taken advantage of favorable winds. As IMAX became popular, and screen sizes increased, so did the director’s films grow in genre. Nolan, better than any other filmmaker, has adapted to cinema’s frustrating shift from everyday activity to occasional pleasure. If you can only see a few movies a year, you’ll probably gravitate to the ones that feel like an all-encompassing event. It’s notable that Nolan avoids any kind of “one for them, one for me” approach: even his passion projects (Dunkirk, for example, or Inception, the script of which he worked for a decade) tend to be huge in scope, and sold as such.

Nolan’s critics may point to this focus on spectacle as a weakness, leading the director to neglect such pesky concerns as emotional connection or characterization, especially when it comes to women. I’m not sure The Odyssey will assuage those particular criticisms, but there are notable areas of improvement in its filmmaking: a slightly shocking foray into body horror at one point; What is generally more interesting is the interest in magic and mystery for the more athletic filmmakers. Nolan, to his faults, never makes these blockbusters as satires: he always seems to want to push himself artistically — only on an unambiguously mass-market scale.

This commitment to bringing as many people as possible in front of a giant screen is worth celebrating, especially since the alternative seems to be a constant stream of first-run movies, half of which can be watched at home. Nolan may continue doing his job for a long time, making competitors tremble in the corner of the giant’s cave.

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